


I Need A Hero

by cantthinkofausername_B_Pike



Series: Carry On Countdown 2017 [20]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Bickering, Carry On Countdown, Dragons, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, they're fighting a dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:55:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantthinkofausername_B_Pike/pseuds/cantthinkofausername_B_Pike
Summary: When Baz's wand gets stolen by a dragon and he goes to retrieve it, Simon follows him. This leads to a lot more near-death experiences and discussions of feelings than either of them were expecting.





	I Need A Hero

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotta stop it with these joke titles. Really. Title from Holding Out For A Hero.  
> special thanks to my best friend for giving me the idea for this and keeping me inspired along the way <3  
> Day 20 of the Countdown: on an adventure.

Where is Baz going? When the dragon attacked earlier today, he fended it off with a nursery rhyme. A full, complete nursery rhyme. After using that much power, he should have been too tired to move. But instead, he’s sneaking out of our room. It’s not late enough that he could be going to the Catacombs to feed. (He thinks I don’t know about that.) The sun just set, and it’s a Thursday, so I have no idea where he could be off to.

I don’t even have to think about it; as soon as I spot Baz acting suspicious I get up to follow him. Old habits die hard, I guess. Besides, he’s probably plotting, and I have to be one step ahead of him.

Baz is wearing a backpack, and he’s tied his hair back. It looks good like that. I’ve never seen him with a backpack before, and I certainly don’t know why he’d need one to walk out into the Wavering Wood on a school night.

I follow Baz through the woods. He’s holding something, and his direction changes at random moments. It’s almost like he doesn’t know where he’s going. Even still, he practically glides over the mostly-decayed carpet of leaves. I don’t know how he manages to be so graceful – I’m tripping over my own feet, and every so often a sharp _crack_ resounds through the woods when I step on a dry twig.

“Snow, why are you following me?” Baz asks after the fourth or fifth time this happens. He doesn’t turn around but keeps walking.

I shrug, though he can’t see me. “I’m not?” I try.

I can practically hear the eyeroll in his voice as he says “Yeah, right. You just happen to be in the Wood after dark in the winter. Walking right behind me.”

“Well, it’s suspicious!” I shout. I rush in front of him so he has to stop and talk to me.

“You think everything I do is suspicious, but you’ve managed to get along just fine without following me the last two years.”

“Yeah, but this is extra suspicious! This isn’t just your normal plotting, this is something big!” I know what I’m trying to say, but instead it comes out sounding like a kid. Why does this always happen to me?

“Can’t you just leave me to my extra-suspicious plotting in peace, Snow? I’ve got places to be.” He sidesteps me and resumes walking.

I fall into step beside him. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what you’re doing.”

“You’ll be here a while then,” Baz says dryly.

Despite my attempts to discern what, exactly, he’s doing, he refuses to answer any of my questions and continues to be just as mysterious as always. We walk in relative silence after that – relative, because I keep stepping on twigs or crunching leaves beneath my feet or forgetting Baz isn’t speaking to me and trying to talk to him.

“What’s that thing you’re holding?” I ask after Baz has looked at something in his hands and changed directions for the third or fourth time. 

“None of your business, Snow.”

“But I think it is my business if it’s deciding where we go,” I say.

“You know what? You don’t even have to _be_ here, so if it’s such a concern, why don’t you just sod off back to Watford and leave me the hell alone?” Baz snarls.

I want to shout back at him, to make him tell me why he’s out here, but I know that won’t do anything. Fighting out here will only end up with one of us injured and with nowhere to go. “I was just wondering if I could help, is all.”

“Fine, if you really must know, the dragon stole my wand, and I’m trying to get it back. But I don’t see how ,i>you could help,” Baz spits bitterly. I can see him tense up, waiting for my ridicule.

After a few seconds, I ask, “So is that a tracking spell you’re holding?”

“Yes. Not going to make fun of me for losing my wand? Attack me while I’m powerless?” Baz is still in a very defensive position, one that I once would’ve been glad to see. Now, though, I feel bad for him. I want to _help_ him.

“If you don’t have your wand, how did you do a tracking spell?”

“Bunce did it for me,” he says, relaxing somewhat.

_That traitor_ , I think. “And how were you planning to get there and back by morning?” It really unnerves me that I’m being the practical one here. Usually, I can’t even remember to tie my shoelaces in the morning. Baz must not have planned this at all.

He doesn’t say anything for a while. “What do you propose, then?”

“Walking’s pretty slow, right? So why don’t we fly there?” This serves two purposes: one, I am the one in control of where we are going. And two, this way I will be back in time for breakfast tomorrow.

Baz raises an eyebrow. “How?”

“Like this,” I say. I think about flying. I think about how much, right in this very moment, I need to fly. I feel the back of my uniform tearing as giant, feathered wings rip through it.

Baz stands awestruck. His mouth has dropped open a little, and he’s looking from my wings back to me in awe. “You have…”

“Wings!” I say proudly. “Come here.”

“Why?” Baz asks apprehensively.

“Because I have wings and you don’t, you dolt.”

“You can’t just… I don’t know, give me wings too?”

“That’s not how this works. This isn’t a spell, Baz. Come here.”

Baz makes a show reluctance and irritation that I feel is mildly unnecessary, considering as we’re the only ones here and I already know how much I irritate him. When he is standing next to me, I wrap my arms around him from behind and use my wings to lift us off the ground. It’s a bit awkward, because he’s taller than me and I’m really not that strong. Immediately, I feel every muscle in his body tense. Either Baz is afraid of heights, or he hates me so much he can’t bear to touch me.

Whichever it is doesn’t matter, because as soon as we break through the trees I feel the wind rushing through my hair and I hear the _thump_ of my wings as they beat against the air and I’m free. I’ve never flown in an airplane, but I don’t imagine it would be like this. Up here, it’s just me. I’m in control, I’m keeping myself afloat, and I’m so far away from everything on the ground that its issues almost cease to matter. 

As we fly along, I hold Baz as he shouts directions to me that are mostly lost in the wind. He’s cold, and his hair is whipping in my face, but I almost don’t mind. Almost. A voice in the back of my mind whispers that this is kind of nice, flying with Baz. I immediately silence it.

A short time later (I can never fly for long enough), we arrive at a cave in a hill. There aren’t mountains anywhere near Watford, so this hill sticks out of the woods like a sore thumb. With only the moonlight for illumination, I can barely see anything, but Baz seems to have no problem as he navigates into the dragon’s cave. It must be his vampire super-vision.

The inside of the cave is huge, much bigger than I would have thought fit in this hill. A soft, orange light with no perceivable source bounces off the mounds of gold and silver objects heaped throughout. The dragon is sleeping soundly, curled up in a nest of coins. Its snores rumble through the cavern, occasionally knocking a trinket or two to the floor with their force.

Baz seems to absorb the light, the warm colors making him look more alive. His eyes sparkle. The flight wrecked his hair; it has mostly fallen out of its ponytail, and tangled strands frame his face. This whole setup looks like it should be a movie, but I can’t decide whether Baz is the thief you almost want to root for or the dashing spy. He could be both.

“There it is,” Baz whispers, pointing (unfortunately) directly at the dragon. 

“Are you sure?” I ask. “How can you even see that far?”

“It’s my wand, Snow, I know where it is.”

“Which explains how it got stolen in the first place,” I shoot back.

He glares at me. “So, are you going to help me, or not?”

“ _Help_ you? I just flew you here! Without me, you’d still be walking!”

“So the plan,” he says, completely ignoring me, “is that I sneak over there and get my wand, and you watch my back.”

“You trust me to do that?” I ask, surprised.

“More than I trust the dragon. Besides, you didn’t drop me earlier.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. I’ve always known that one of us would kill the other, but I imagined that as some sort of grand fight. Like the gladiators. I certainly would never think of dropping him from hundreds of feet above the ground. Apparently, he would.

“I’m hurt that you think so little of me,” I say, half joking.

Something behind Baz’s eyes shifts, but he looks away so fast I can’t tell what it was. “On three,” he says. “One… Two… Three.”

We creep along the edge of the cave toward the dragon, Baz in the lead and me following right behind him. I don’t have my wand out, because we both know it won’t do anything. I don’t have the Sword of Mages out, because it’s heavy.

At first, I think everything is going to go according to plan. Baz slips his wand out from under the dragon’s paw and starts to cautiously step away. He’s almost back to the wall of the cave when he slips on a loose coin. The next bit seems to happen in slow motion. It would be in slow motion, if this were a movie. Baz falls backwards, landing on his backside with a dull _thud_. His wand slips from his fingers, landing on the floor a few feet away. The coin he tripped over shoots up in front of him, arcing until it hits the dragon squarely in the eye. The dragon roars, fire shooting out of its nostrils as it rises. The fire comes close enough to singe Baz, who is frantically trying to scramble away. 

My brain can only process one thought: _Baz is flammable_. I summon the Sword of Mages and shout “Oi! Dragon! Over here!” before diving behind a tower of jewelry. Fire shoots around both sides of the column, and I’m glad I don’t have my wings anymore because they would have been burned to a crisp. Speaking of – the fire coming my way means that Baz is safe. Every time the dragon seems to lose interest in me, I shout at it some more and continue this dangerous game of hide and seek. Once I see Baz waiting at the entrance to the cave, I know it’s time to get out of there. I throw a crown as far as I can in the opposite direction and sprint for the exit. It might be the oldest trick in the book, but it works. We’re out of the cave before the dragon even looks our way.

Baz holds up his wand. “We did it,” he says, smiling.

“We did it,” I repeat. 

The sun is rising, and in its golden light I can see how far we are from Watford. I hadn’t realized how far I’d flown, but Watford is just a speck on the horizon from here. I turn to Baz, about to say something, but as soon as I see him my words catch in my throat. He’s lit up with joy. His clothes and hair are a wreck and he’s kind of sweaty, but for some reason the sight of him makes me forget how to form words. He looks _really good_. (There’s a voice in my brain telling me that he _always_ looks really good, and this time I’m forced to admit that it’s right.) 

Before I even register what I’m doing, my thumb is already wiping away the smudge of soot on his cheek. Baz looks at me, really looks at me, and this is the most unguarded I’ve ever seen him.

“You saved my life,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “Why?”

“Can’t have anyone else killing you,” I joke. “That’s my job.” Baz smiles a little, just in one corner of his mouth. “When the dragon was coming after you, the only thing I could think was that I couldn’t lose you.”

Baz’s face fills with wonder and awe. I don’t know how I ever thought he hated me. He’s looking at me like I mean something to him. Like I’m his world. 

“So we’re not fighting anymore?” He asks it like a question, but it comes out as more of a statement. 

“How could we?” I reply.

“I don’t know what we are, if we’re not fighting,” he confesses.

“Neither do I.”

I know we should go. We have classes to attend and besides, I’m hungry. But I don’t want to break this moment. Something about it feels magical, and not the magic we learn in school. I’m not looking at Baz’s eyes, but I can feel his gaze darting all over my face. It keeps coming back to my lips. (I’m not looking at his eyes because mine are too busy doing the same thing.)

I want to kiss him. At first, my brain rebels at the thought. But Baz isn’t my enemy, and I’ve learned tonight that I’m willing to risk my life for him. I need him, whether I like it or not. Also, he’s really hot.

So I do it. I kiss him. Or he kisses me, I’m really not sure. All I know is that Baz’s lips are on mine and it’s the most glorious feeling in the world. 

After a second, he pulls away. “There’s still an angry dragon in there,” he whispers onto my lips. “And we really should be getting back.”

I sigh as dramatically as I can. Then I grow my wings, which look suspiciously dragonlike now, and we fly off into the sunrise like we're in a movie.


End file.
